McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen (2009): Growth, Quality, Happiness, and the Poor.
Download (210kB) | Preview
Real national income per head in Britain rose by a factor of about 16 from the 18th century to the present. Other cases, such as that of the U.S. or Korea, have been even more startling, historically speaking. Like the realization in astronomy during the 1920s that most of the “nebulae” detected by telescopes are in fact other galaxies unspeakably far from ours, the Great Fact of economic growth, discovered by historians and economists in the 1950s and elaborated since then, changes everything. And 16, if one follows William Nordhaus’ persuasive arguments about quality improvements in (say) lighting, is a very low lower bound: the true factor is roughly 100. As Maxine Berg has argued, changing quality of products was as important as changes in process. But the gain is not to be measured by pot-of-pleasure “happiness studies.” These are questionable on technical grounds, but especially on the grounds that they do not measure human fulfillment. They ignore the humanities, pretending to scientific precision. It makes more sense to stay with things we economists can actually measure, such as the rise of human scope indicated by the factor of 16 or Nordhaus’ factor of 100, or by what Sen and Nussbaum call “capabilities.” Of course, what we really care about are the scope or capabilities of the poor. These have enormously expanded under “capitalism”---though a better word is simply “innovation,” arising from bourgeois dignity and liberty. It is the Bourgeois Deal: let me alertly seek profit, and I will make you rich.”
|Item Type:||MPRA Paper|
|Original Title:||Growth, Quality, Happiness, and the Poor|
|Keywords:||growth; quality; happiness; poor; bourgeois; industrial revolution|
|Subjects:||N - Economic History > N0 - General
N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N13 - Europe: Pre-1913
|Depositing User:||Susan MacDonald|
|Date Deposited:||20. Oct 2009 08:37|
|Last Modified:||11. Dec 2014 23:00|
Berg, Maxine, and Kristine Bruland, eds. 1998. Technological Revolutions in Europe: Historical Perspectives. Cheltenham: Elgar.
Boskin, Michael J., Ellen R. Dulberger, Robert J. Gordon, Zvi Griliches, and Dale W. Jorgenson. 1998. “Consumer Prices, the Consumer Price Index, and the Cost of Living.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 12 (1, Winter); 3-26.
Boswell, James. 1791. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D. In two volumes. London: J. M. Dent, 1949.
Bresnahan, Timothy, and Robert J. Gordon. 1997. “Introduction.” Pp. 1-26 in Timothy Bresnahan and Robert J. Gordon, eds., The Economics of New Goods. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Buchanan, James M. 2003. "Justice among Natural Equals: Memorial Marker for John Rawls." Public Choice 114: iii-v.
Clark, Gregory. 2007a. A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press
Clark, Gregory. 2007b. “Some Limited Responses to My Critics.” Power point presentation to the Social Science History Association, Chicago Meeting, November 17.
Clark, Gregory. 2007c. “A Review of Avner Greif’s Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade. Journal of Economic Literature45 (Sept): 727-743.
Cowen, Tyler. 1998. In Praise of Commercial Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Cox, Michael, and Richard Alm. 1999. Myths of Rich and Poor. New York: Basic Books.
Crafts, N. F. R. 2004 (2005). “The First Industrial Revolution: Resolving the Slow Growth/Rapid Industrialization Paradox.” Journal of the European Economic Association 3(April/May): 525-534. Manuscript, London School of Economics. At http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/ economicHistory /pdf/First%20Industrial%20Reveloution%20-%20NFRC.pdf
Crafts, Nicholas F. R., and C. Knick Harley. 1992. “Output Growth and the British Industrial Revolution: a Restatement of the Crafts-Harley View." Economic History Review 45: 703-730.
Crafts, Nicholas F. R., and C. Knick Harley. 2004. “Precocious British Industrialization: A General Equilibrium Perspective." In British Exceptionalism: a Unique Path to the Industrial Revolution, edited by Leandro Prados de la Escosura. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crafts, Nicholas F. R., S. J. Leybourne, and T. C. Mills. 1991. "Chapter 7: Britain." Pp. 109-152 in Richard Sylla and Gianni Toniolo, eds., Patterns of European Industrialization: The Nineteenth Century. London: Routledge, and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti.
Eagleton, Terry. 2009. Trouble with Strangers: A Study of Ethics. Malden, Mass. and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Easterlin, Richard A. 1973. “Does Money Buy Happiness?” The Public Interest 30: 3–10.
Easterlin, Richard A. 1974. “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence.” Pp. 89-125 in Paul David and Melvin Reder, eds., Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honor of Moses Abramowitz. New York: Academic Press.
Easterlin, Richard A. 1981. “Why Isn't the Whole World Developed?” Journal of Economic History 41(1): 1-19.
Easterlin, Richard A. 1995. “Industrial Revolution and Mortality Revolution: Two of a Kind?” Journal of Evolutionary Economics 5 (393-408), reprinted in Easterlin 2004.
Easterlin, Richard A. 2003. “Living Standards.” In Mokyr, ed., Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History.
Easterlin, Richard A. 2004. The Reluctant Economist: Perspectives on Economics, Economic History, and Demography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Easterlin, Richard A., ed. 2002. Happiness in Economics. An Elgar Reference Collection. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton: Elgar.
Eldridge, Niles. 1995. Dominion. New York: Henry Holt.
Feinstein, Charles H. 1972. National Income, Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom, 1855-1965. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Feinstein, Charles H., and Sidney Pollard, eds. 1988. Studies in Capital Formation in the United Kingdom, 1750-1920. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Fogel, Robert W. 2002. The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fogel, Robert W. 2008. "Forecasting the Cost of U.S. Health Care in 2040." NBER Working Papers 14361, Fouquet, Roger. 2008. Heat, Power and Light: Revolutions in Energy Services. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Frank, Robert, and Philip J. Cook. 1995. The Winner-Take-All Society. New York: Martin Kessler Books, Free Press.
Frank, Robert. 1985. Choosing the Right Pond: Human Behavior and the Quest for Status. New York: Oxford University Press.
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2005. The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. New York: Knopf.
Goldin, Claudia, and Lawrence F. Katz. 2008. The Race Between Education and Technology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Gordon, Robert J. 1990. The Measurement of Durable Goods Prices. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Layard, Richard. 2009. “Now is the Time for a Less Selfish Capitalism.” Financial Times. March 12, p. 17 only.
Macfarlane, Alan. 2000. The Riddle of the Modern World: Of Liberty, Wealth, and Equality. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Maddison, Angus. 2006. The World Economy. Comprising The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective (2001) and The World Economy: Historical Statistic (2003) bound as one. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Maddison, Angus. 2007. Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Marglin, Stephen A. 1974. “What Does Bosses Do? The Origins and Functions of Hierarchy in Capitalist Production.” Part I. Review of Radical Political Economics 6 (summer): 33-60; and Part II: 60-112. Reprinted in A. Gorz, ed. The Division of Labour: The Labour Process and Class Struggle in Modern Capitalism (Brighton, 1976) and as pp. 25-68 in Warwick Organizational Behaviour Staff, eds. Organizational Studies. London: Routledge, 2001.
Marglin, Stephen A. 2008. The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Marsalis, Wynton, and Geoffrey C. Ward. 2008. Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life. New York: Random House.
Menand, Louis. 2009. “Show or Tell? Should Creative Writing be Taught?” The New Yorker June 8 & 15: 106-112.
Moore, Basil J. 2006. Shaking the Invisible Hand: Complexity, Endogenous Money and Exogenous Interest Rates. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Moulton, Brent R. 1996. "Bias in the Consumer Price Index: What Is the Evidence?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 10(4, Fall): 159-77.
Nelson, Robert H. 1991. Reaching for Heaven on Earth: The Theological Meaning of Economics. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
Nelson, Robert H. 2001. Economics as Religion: From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Nelson, Robert H. 2010. The New Holy Wars Economic Religion Versus Environmental Religion in Contemporary America. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Nordhaus, William D. 1997. "Do Real Output and Real Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not." Pp. 29-70 in Timothy Bresnahan and Robert J. Gordon, eds., The Economics of New Goods. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
Nussbaum, Martha, and Amartya Sen. 1993. The Quality of Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Nussbaum, Martha. 1999. Sex and Social Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ó Gráda, Cormac. 2009. Famine: A Short History. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
O’Rourke, Kevin, and Jeffrey G. Williamson. 2002. “After Columbus: Explaining Europe’s Overseas Trade Boom, 1550-1800.”
OECD. 2009. Highlights from Education at a Glance. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. At http://browse.oecdbookshop.org/oecd/pdfs/browseit/9609011E.PDF
Otteson, James. 2006. Actual Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1942. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. 3rd. ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1950. Harper Torchbook ed. 1962.
Sokoloff, Kenneth L. 1988. “Inventive Activity in Early Industrial America: Evidence from Patent Records, 1790-1846.” Journal of Economic History 48: 813-850.
Sokoloff, Kenneth L., and B. Z. Khan. 1990. “The Democratization of Invention during Early Industrialization: Evidence from the United States, 1790-1846.” Journal of Economic History 50: 363-378.
Temple, Robert. 1986. The Genius of China. Forward by Joseph Needham. 3rd ed. 2007. London: Andre Deutsch.
Tunzelmann, Nick von. 2003. “Technology.” In Mokyr, ed. Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History. Usher, Abbott Payson. 1960. “The Industrialization of Modern Britain.” Technology and Culture 1 (2, Spring):109-127.
van Zanden, Jan Luiten. 2003. “Inequality of Wealth of Income Distribution.” In Mokyr, ed., Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History .
Whitehead, Alfred North. 1925. Science and the Modern World. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.
Young, Allyn A. 1928. “Increasing Returns and Economic Progress.” Economic Journal 38: 527-42.